"Academies and free schools are subject to tougher financial accountability measures than maintained schools. Unlike maintained schools, academies must have their accounts externally audited."
Yep tightened up now I think. KSA was wave 1. Graded 3 (req imp) by ofsted this year.
My wife resigned from her teaching job today. All form filling and second guessing OFSTED. No joy anymore. She'd been doing it 25 years. She's finished at the end of December.
My wife resigned from her teaching job today. All form filling and second guessing OFSTED. No joy anymore. She'd been doing it 25 years. She's finished at the end of December.
Mrs Jayfdee resigned today from the NHS,not enjoying it anymore,23 years of service,and a huge number of cards and presents from patients. Not making any political point,she enjoyed it,but got weary of protocols etc.
My wife resigned from her teaching job today. All form filling and second guessing OFSTED. No joy anymore. She'd been doing it 25 years. She's finished at the end of December.
If it's any consolation, the job doesn't seem to be much about teaching these days.
Grangemouth survival package agreed and positive GDP figure, a very good news day. I suspect that Ed Miliband's strategy of going big on squeezed living costs is going to crash and burn in the same way as Ed Balls 'too far too fast' and time for Plan B on austerity did as we get nearer the GE. As the economic recovery gathers momentum, Osborne can claim that this Government did provide stability as it has rebalanced the economy, thus providing more sustainable growth while reducing the deficit.
Its the economy stupid, and that alone blows any chance of Miliband and Balls being able to claim that they are a credible alternative when it comes to stewardship of the economy. David Cameron got it right when he called Ed Miliband a conman this week, the idea that this economic recovery is some how the 'wrong type of growth' when its providing increased employment and job security after the turmoil of the last five years really is one big con.
EdM was part of Brown's economic team , he failed to delivered .In spades. Osborne is delivering.In spades. Poliiticians must be judged on results in a meritocracy. All the rest is just idle chit-chat.
C4 news has a ComRes poll on Free Schools, more dire reading for Gove and his tightly drawn group of politically motivated men. And the PM who isn't interested in Education according to Kenneth Baker
81% say teachers should be qualified, 67% national curriculum.
Grangemouth survival package agreed and positive GDP figure, a very good news day.
Reading between the lines of what Salmond said "the package was agreed, it was not that which was the stumbling block" and what Ratcliffe said about the Union convener.....it is not without the bounds of possibility that this whole closure was caused by Unite's attempt to protect the job of Stephen Deans, the man behind the Falkirk "non-story". Hence McCluskey's intervention to help them see "the bigger picture"......
"Academies and free schools are subject to tougher financial accountability measures than maintained schools. Unlike maintained schools, academies must have their accounts externally audited."
Yep tightened up now I think. KSA was wave 1. Graded 3 (req imp) by ofsted this year.
Sounds like the photoshoot went well though
@MichaelLCrick: After 2012 visit to Kings Science Academy free school, Cameron wrote to say "REALLY impressed". DfE now find "serious failings" in fin mangt
Do you think Dave spent the school visit running his finger down columns of figures and checking the supporting documentation?
It looks like a case of poor financial controls rather than fraud, given that the Police decided not to take action after investigating the incident.
This will not be an isolated problem in Free Schools. They will have inherited a public sector culture of accounting and financial control. The submission to a rigorous independent audit will be a major shock.
Goodness knows what auditors would turn up if they were let loose on LEA maintained schools.
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
C4 news has a ComRes poll on Free Schools, more dire reading for Gove and his tightly drawn group of politically motivated men. And the PM who isn't interested in Education according to Kenneth Baker
81% say teachers should be qualified, 67% national curriculum.
Since 96% of Free School teachers are qualified, hardly a problem.....now Public schools, like the ones Clegg and the Hon Hunt went to might be another matter....
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
C4 news has a ComRes poll on Free Schools, more dire reading for Gove and his tightly drawn group of politically motivated men. And the PM who isn't interested in Education according to Kenneth Baker
81% say teachers should be qualified, 67% national curriculum.
Cue a dozen PB Tories claiming that someone who gave a talk once about their wartime experiences wasn't a qualified teacher so why should a full time head of maths, yawn
As I've said, we get unqualified people in in certain circumstances. Plus there are routes in direct to school placement/training now. I do support encouraging more 'academically sound' entrants... but there's a big shortage looming all round.
Can't think why, as - as we're constantly told by 'experts' (ie anyone who's been to school) - it's a well paid, piss easy job, with short days and big holidays. Not to mention the gold-plated pension. I don't get it. What's not to like?
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Eric Joyce will be available c. May 2015.
Absolutely the type, McDivvie.
Do the books, referee the boxing tournament, run the CCF and keep the SCR cellar well stocked.
"Academies and free schools are subject to tougher financial accountability measures than maintained schools. Unlike maintained schools, academies must have their accounts externally audited."
Yep tightened up now I think. KSA was wave 1. Graded 3 (req imp) by ofsted this year.
Sounds like the photoshoot went well though
@MichaelLCrick: After 2012 visit to Kings Science Academy free school, Cameron wrote to say "REALLY impressed". DfE now find "serious failings" in fin mangt
Do you think Dave spent the school visit running his finger down columns of figures and checking the supporting documentation?
It looks like a case of poor financial controls rather than fraud, given that the Police decided not to take action after investigating the incident.
This will not be an isolated problem in Free Schools. They will have inherited a public sector culture of accounting and financial control. The submission to a rigorous independent audit will be a major shock.
Goodness knows what auditors would turn up if they were let loose on LEA maintained schools.
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Steve Fisher is Fitalass & co.'s new friend. According to him, Labour's chances of being the largest party is 12%. However, it has a 15% chance of getting an absolute majority !!
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Eric Joyce will be available c. May 2015.
Absolutely the type, McDivvie.
Do the books, referee the boxing tournament, run the CCF and keep the SCR cellar well stocked.
Would he be able to restrain his Toryphobia when Dave, Gove or even worse, Toby Young drop by for a photoshoot though?
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Eric Joyce will be available c. May 2015.
Absolutely the type, McDivvie.
Do the books, referee the boxing tournament, run the CCF and keep the SCR cellar well stocked.
Would he be able to restrain his Toryphobia when Dave, Gove or even worse, Toby Young drop by for a photoshoot though?
If teaching is anything like nursing - all hearsay from now on - then what happens is a percentage of people who join nursing discover they don't actually like doing the job so they slope off into part of the surrounding management structure. Over time more and more of them coagulate there like barnacles on a boat.
imo teacher, nursing and plod management should all be the same - basically a light duties job you do after 20 years when your knees or back has gone.
• £182,933 of lead-in grant was paid during the start-up period before opening in September 2011
• £59,560 was not supported by any evidence of payments being made and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent
• there was a total of £26,775 which had been over-claimed against payments which had been made legitimately
• therefore a total of £86,335 had not been used for its intended purpose. Some further evidence from the academy of legitimate payments (eg for the accounting system) resulted in the repayment being reduced to £76,933
• we informed the police in April 2013. The police decided to take no further action
• the department issued a warning notice to the school in May 2013. It required them to take action to address failings in their financial management.
For the Police to investigate that lot and find no cause to lay charges means essentially that there was monumental incompetence: effectively no standard bookkeeping and financial controls.
Independence from local authority control has its burdens as well as freedoms. Not something that will be at the forefront of the founders' minds perhaps.
If teaching is anything like nursing - all hearsay from now on - then what happens is a percentage of people who join nursing discover they don't actually like doing the job so they slope off into part of the surrounding management structure. Over time more and more of them coagulate there like barnacles on a boat.
imo teacher, nursing and plod management should all be the same - basically a light duties job you do after 20 years when your knees or back has gone.
Fairly accurate in my experience. To be honest the job would be manageable - and the outcomes better - if we could just plan, teach and mark. But all the rest of the guff gets in the way. And from what I've seen of PRP-related admin etc thus far this term it's going to get much, much worse.
Grangemouth survival package agreed and positive GDP figure, a very good news day. I suspect that Ed Miliband's strategy of going big on squeezed living costs is going to crash and burn in the same way as Ed Balls 'too far too fast' and time for Plan B on austerity did as we get nearer the GE. As the economic recovery gathers momentum, Osborne can claim that this Government did provide stability as it has rebalanced the economy, thus providing more sustainable growth while reducing the deficit.
Its the economy stupid, and that alone blows any chance of Miliband and Balls being able to claim that they are a credible alternative when it comes to stewardship of the economy. David Cameron got it right when he called Ed Miliband a conman this week, the idea that this economic recovery is some how the 'wrong type of growth' when its providing increased employment and job security after the turmoil of the last five years really is one big con.
all good points and then to have a John Rentoul piece linked by a left-er which actually makes the point that the Cons are and should be happy that EdM as a "con man" is all that will be remembered from Dave's Disastrous PMQs is the icing on the cake.
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Eric Joyce will be available c. May 2015.
Absolutely the type, McDivvie.
Do the books, referee the boxing tournament, run the CCF and keep the SCR cellar well stocked.
Would he be able to restrain his Toryphobia when Dave, Gove or even worse, Toby Young drop by for a photoshoot though?
If it doesn't move, clean it. If it does, salute it.
That's the Army way.
Joyce will know how to give a sarcastic salute to Dave and Gove.
Toby might be a little more difficult.
You would just need to steal into his office the night before the visit and confiscate the to the Armoury
If teaching is anything like nursing - all hearsay from now on - then what happens is a percentage of people who join nursing discover they don't actually like doing the job so they slope off into part of the surrounding management structure. Over time more and more of them coagulate there like barnacles on a boat.
imo teacher, nursing and plod management should all be the same - basically a light duties job you do after 20 years when your knees or back has gone.
Fairly accurate in my experience. To be honest the job would be manageable - and the outcomes better - if we could just plan, teach and mark. But all the rest of the guff gets in the way. And from what I've seen of PRP-related admin etc thus far this term it's going to get much, much worse.
Yes, forgot to add the coagulated have to fill their time somehow and they do it by making up hoops for people to jump through.
• £182,933 of lead-in grant was paid during the start-up period before opening in September 2011
• £59,560 was not supported by any evidence of payments being made and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent
• there was a total of £26,775 which had been over-claimed against payments which had been made legitimately
• therefore a total of £86,335 had not been used for its intended purpose. Some further evidence from the academy of legitimate payments (eg for the accounting system) resulted in the repayment being reduced to £76,933
• we informed the police in April 2013. The police decided to take no further action
• the department issued a warning notice to the school in May 2013. It required them to take action to address failings in their financial management.
For the Police to investigate that lot and find no cause to lay charges means essentially that there was monumental incompetence: effectively no standard bookkeeping and financial controls.
Independence from local authority control has its burdens as well as freedoms. Not something that will be at the forefront of the founders' minds perhaps.
The whole system is turning into a massive clusterf*ck tbh.
Where Gove has gone wrong imo is that he should have effected change via sorting out the regulatory body, not given more power to managers who are the root of most of the problems.
And I was on board re some policies like more academic rigour etc. Many teachers felt the same. Gove could have taken many of us with him, but instead he wanted to re-enact Maggie and the miners.
The govt have got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
The govt has got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
Pity you didn't have the opportunity to go to a free school, you might have learned something.
My bog-standard comp education tells me that 'in British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies.'
• £182,933 of lead-in grant was paid during the start-up period before opening in September 2011
• £59,560 was not supported by any evidence of payments being made and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent
• there was a total of £26,775 which had been over-claimed against payments which had been made legitimately
• therefore a total of £86,335 had not been used for its intended purpose. Some further evidence from the academy of legitimate payments (eg for the accounting system) resulted in the repayment being reduced to £76,933
• we informed the police in April 2013. The police decided to take no further action
• the department issued a warning notice to the school in May 2013. It required them to take action to address failings in their financial management.
For the Police to investigate that lot and find no cause to lay charges means essentially that there was monumental incompetence: effectively no standard bookkeeping and financial controls.
Independence from local authority control has its burdens as well as freedoms. Not something that will be at the forefront of the founders' minds perhaps.
The whole system is turning into a massive clusterf*ck tbh.
Where Gove has gone wrong imo is that he should have effected change via sorting out the regulatory body, not given more power to managers who are the root of most of the problems.
And I was on board re some policies like more academic rigour etc. Many teachers felt the same. Gove could have taken many of us with him, but instead he wanted to re-enact Maggie and the miners.
The whole system isn't turning into a massive clusterf*ck.
The problems with the financial accounting at KSA are exactly what you would expect in any start-up enterprise where the supervisory body had not yet learnt from experience.
You have to take risks to create something new and effective. And self-managed schools (outside of the private sector) are new. Many of them will not survive. But enough will thrive to prove the concept and influence the rest of the sector.
The art of efficient management is to be seemingly invisible, but it takes much practice and learning to get there.
• £182,933 of lead-in grant was paid during the start-up period before opening in September 2011
• £59,560 was not supported by any evidence of payments being made and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent
• there was a total of £26,775 which had been over-claimed against payments which had been made legitimately
• therefore a total of £86,335 had not been used for its intended purpose. Some further evidence from the academy of legitimate payments (eg for the accounting system) resulted in the repayment being reduced to £76,933
• we informed the police in April 2013. The police decided to take no further action
• the department issued a warning notice to the school in May 2013. It required them to take action to address failings in their financial management.
For the Police to investigate that lot and find no cause to lay charges means essentially that there was monumental incompetence: effectively no standard bookkeeping and financial controls.
Independence from local authority control has its burdens as well as freedoms. Not something that will be at the forefront of the founders' minds perhaps.
The whole system is turning into a massive clusterf*ck tbh.
Where Gove has gone wrong imo is that he should have effected change via sorting out the regulatory body, not given more power to managers who are the root of most of the problems.
And I was on board re some policies like more academic rigour etc. Many teachers felt the same. Gove could have taken many of us with him, but instead he wanted to re-enact Maggie and the miners.
I just caught the full Jim Ratcliffe interview with the BBC, he has certainly come out fighting in the UK media today now the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed. It won't make comfortable viewing for the Unite representatives involved, or some Labour MP's for that matter. BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
In terms of policy initiatives suggested and enacted by the Coalition, most fail the Hutchinson test.i.e. In moral terms is it right or wrong to establish this policy? Even a cursory look at the initiatives would establish that most would fail this moral test.
I consider that unlikely - most people without an intense interest in politics pay only cursory attention to government policies, and while the Coalition has certainly caused plenty of irritation with many of its policies as changing anything is bound to create irritation, let along questionably effective changes as many will see it, there does not appear to be the level of moral outrage at the Coalition that one would expect if 'most' of their policies were, at a cursory look, immoral. Rather, their fumbling incompetence (or, if we want to be charitable and consider the pro-tory view, the appearence of fumbling incompetence) has been the biggest setback to them being approved of by the public.
The most noise I can recall of outrage on moral terms about a Coalition policy is the bedroom tax, and that is pretty popular isn't it? Certainly the welfare cap at least is, so if the coalition is immoral in its policies, most people are idiots as either they are immoral and like those policies, or they don't think they are immoral.
The govt have got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
The govt has got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
Pity you didn't have the opportunity to go to a free school, you might have learned something.
My bog-standard comp education tells me that 'in British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies.'
I would agree with you in some cases, such as team names where "Manchester United is" just sounds plain wrong. But the term "the Government" is surely a singular noun plain and simple. especially where you are implying commonality of purpose, as tim does in this case.
So 12% chance Labour are the largest party but don't have a majority, 15% chance on top of that they manage to achieve a majority? Remarkable if this prediction turns out to be accurate, as that seems incredibly low.
The govt have got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
The govt has got one of them rolling out Universal Credit
Pity you didn't have the opportunity to go to a free school, you might have learned something.
My bog-standard comp education tells me that 'in British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies.'
I would agree with you in some cases, such as team names where "Manchester United is" just sounds plain wrong. But the term "the Government" is surely a singular noun plain and simple. especially where you are implying commonality of purpose, as tim does in this case.
I'm sure tim would never wish to imply the government was unified, undivided and pursuing a commonality of purpose, unless you mean doing what Osborne wants
White House has confirmed that Cameron's phone has not been, are not being and will not be bugged.
Therefore, Merkel's phone was bugged !
If their neutered 'spokesman speak' is so simple to decode, one wonders why they bother with it - it seems like leaving out the past tense re Merkel was seized upon by every sentient person watching it, so why not just make an outright admission?
I think people are missing a key point of this analysis: Namely that the Tories are most likely to be the largest party but are less likely to form a majority government. Given the 95% CI ranges posted I could imagine a skewed distribution within Labour's narrow bounds that demonstrates a bias to the left of that sample mean. This would imply that Labour is more likely to poll 31% than 38% and that 29% is more likely than the latter.
So Labour could win a majority but that it is less likely that they will be the largest party. Conversely The Tories are more normally distributed: For each rise in their vote-percentage it becomes more likely that they will form a majority than that they would just be the largest party.
Ofcourse the two-party analysis ignores third-parties: Just as the Dhimmies denied the Tories in 2010 so they may recover enough to eat away a Labour (primarily) and the Tories. If you accept - via, say, swingback - Labour may struggle to get 35-36% then it will be more likely that the Tories will form a majority or be the largest party if the Labour vote is significantly undercut by "Others".
It sounds confusing and I await Stephens feedback but because the Tory range is wider they have the greater opportunities. If Labour can narrow the gap between the big-two then they have a better chance of gaining a majority as the gains rapidly accrue.
I just caught the full Jim Ratcliffe interview with the BBC, he has certainly come out fighting in the UK media today now the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed. It won't make comfortable viewing for the Unite representatives involved, or some Labour MP's for that matter. BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
Thank you , fitalass.
Ratcliffe is the voice of sanity. Two and two still makes four. Cameron should offer him a peerage and get him in the Cabinet.
I think people are missing a key point of this analysis: Namely that the Tories are most likely to be the largest party but are less likely to form a majority government. Given the 95% CI ranges posted I could imagine a skewed distribution within Labour's narrow bounds that demonstrates a bias to the left of that sample mean. This would imply that Labour is more likely to poll 31% than 38% and that 29% is more likely than the latter.
So Labour could win a majority but that it is less likely that they will be the largest party. Conversely The Tories are more normally distributed: For each rise in their vote-percentage it becomes more likely that they will form a majority than that they would just be the largest party.
Ofcourse the two-party analysis ignores third-parties: Just as the Dhimmies denied the Tories in 2010 so they may recover enough to eat away a Labour (primarily) and the Tories. If you accept - via, say, swingback - Labour may struggle to get 35-36% then it will be more likely that the Tories will form a majority or be the largest party if the Labour vote is significantly undercut by "Others".
It sounds confusing and I await Stephens feedback but because the Tory range is wider they have the greater opportunities. If Labour can narrow the gap between the big-two then they have a better chance of gaining a majority as the gains rapidly accrue.
This would imply that Labour is more likely to poll 31% than 38% and that 29% is more likely than the latter.
So Labour could win a majority but that it is less likely that they will be the largest party.
What Columbian are you smoking ?
Let's say, all things being equal, that Labour wins an absolute majority at 36% and becomes the largest party at 33% [ it would, of course, depend on the vote distribution of other parties ].
We start at 29% [ GE2010]. So you are saying Labour has a greater probability of getting more than 36% than getting 33% - 35% ?
I just caught the full Jim Ratcliffe interview with the BBC, he has certainly come out fighting in the UK media today now the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed. It won't make comfortable viewing for the Unite representatives involved, or some Labour MP's for that matter. BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
Worth watching - also pretty evident the shut down was all about the Unite official.....
An interesting model from Fisher but it totally ignores the fact that most of the rise in the Labour vote has come from the LDs so there is little room for swingback to the Tories, so the Labour vote is unlikely to fall below 35/36% to the 33% he forecasts. I agree with him that the Tories could eke a majority, but at most it will probably be less than 10 and mainly come from squeezing the UKIP vote!
On top of the diplomatic nightmare created by world leaders and supposed allies inexplicably upset at having their phones tapped by the NSA, there is this.
The Mail is of course overstating it a bit. However there is no question who was pushing hardest for a Syrian military action. Nor is their response to thawing US Iran relations remotely surprising either. This is going to have repercussions down the line.
Let's say, all things being equal, that Labour wins an absolute majority at 36% and becomes the largest party at 33% [ it would, of course, depend on the vote distribution of other parties ].
Take 2005: Labour about 36% and Conservative around 33%. Result a Labour landslide. Remember that the Blair administration was still seen as rather competant and so attracted the middle-of-the-road voter.
Consider 2015: [Hypothetically] Labour are likely to poll 33% and Tories 37% as Labour are seen as more statist and the Tory-led coalition as competant and middle-of-the-road. So Tory-largest party is highly possible. If the poll shifts 34%/36% it is probably more conceivable that Labour can form a majority (albeit small) government rather then just be the largest party per se. [Different outcomes that should not be conflated: Largest party implies minority or Coalition politics.]
So that explains the anomoly between the largest-party/majority outcome for Labour. Due to the [literally] denseness of their core electorate small changes in poll outcomes can lead to perverse majorities. The more you think about it the obvious it becomes....
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Carlotta, just seen your post and totally agree. The Labour/Unite Falkirk scandal is going to rumble on while we await the outcome of the INEOS report on Unite Convener Stevie Deans. What has happened at Grangemouth is nothing short of a disaster in PR terms for the Unite Union, and the continued fall out for them doesn't look like ending with the agreement of the Grangemouth survival package. And now Jim Ratcliffe has coming out fighting and launched a media offensive of his own, its looking even worse for Unite.
It must also brings into question Ed Miliband's lack of Leadership and inherent weakness whenever the Labour Party's biggest donor Unite becomes embroiled in an industrial dispute. That Ed Miliband couldn't even bring himself to raise the vital issue of Grangemouth's closure at PMQ's because of a conflict of interest was a dereliction of duty by a LotO. A hurried Urgent Question tagged onto the end of PMQ's to save his blushes, and then a tweet demanding the Government do something to prevent about the closure when he could have directly raised the issue with the PM two hours earlier looked extremely cowardly in the circumstances.
Grangemouth survival package agreed and positive GDP figure, a very good news day.
Reading between the lines of what Salmond said "the package was agreed, it was not that which was the stumbling block" and what Ratcliffe said about the Union convener.....it is not without the bounds of possibility that this whole closure was caused by Unite's attempt to protect the job of Stephen Deans, the man behind the Falkirk "non-story". Hence McCluskey's intervention to help them see "the bigger picture"......
" Ineos plans to spend around £200m on a new shipping terminal at Grangemouth to handle imports of cheap US ethane – a replacement for declining North Sea feedstocks. Much of the remaining £100m of spending will modify the chemicals cracker to the US gases, which are different to those in the North Sea.
The investment is expected to be backed by a £125m loan guarantee under the Treasury’s £40bn infrastructure guarantee plan plus £9m from the Scottish government.
The terminal is due to be built in two and a half years.
Mr Ratcliffe was vilified by the unions as a Swiss-based billionaire negotiating Grangemouth’s future from his yacht – an image he described as “a load of bollocks”.
“I have not be sat in a yacht in the Med. I have been sat in London and Edinburgh.” he said. “Yes, I’ve made some money. But I started off in a very poor part of Manchester. I don’t feel hair-shirted about the fact that I have a nice boat. It’s not relevant.”"
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
My chief memory of Major is that he left a " golden legacy ". I suppose that's how he'll be remembered.
Moniker He was not a great PM but he did leave a strong economy to Blair and win an election which is more than any other Tory leader still alive! However, the legacy of Edwina will also inevitably be permanently on his record
White House has confirmed that Cameron's phone has not been, are not being and will not be bugged.
Therefore, Merkel's phone was bugged !
No! No! No!
Don't be silly!
We bug Cameron, then tell the Americans!
As unsurprising as the extent of the CAZAB based spying effort is and embarassing as it is that its been caught on, Snowden has a bucket load more information that a) the Guardian will not see, b) will not release or c) will release and possibly help wipe some serious human intelligence operations.
In reality the US are still uncovering extent of the document steal but the info Snowden has isn't just about the big electronic ears. Truth be told it isnt hard to work out what cables and over the air channels the CAZAB effort has taps on. The electronic channels being compromised does hurt the US disproportionately as they do have an over heavy dependence on technical collection.
A real killer though is that certain agencies that the US have very good liaison with have really good human intelligence operations. They've been told to press the eject button on some of them because their assets could be identified from Snowdens haul.
Snowden is no Bradley Manning, its worse, much worse.
That very candid BBC Jim Ratcliffe interview was illuminating on a lot of levels..... Its notable that he kept his power dry while his critics tried to vilify him in the media over the last few weeks, now that the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed he has come out fighting.
I just caught the full Jim Ratcliffe interview with the BBC, he has certainly come out fighting in the UK media today now the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed. It won't make comfortable viewing for the Unite representatives involved, or some Labour MP's for that matter. BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
Worth watching - also pretty evident the shut down was all about the Unite official.....
Anushka Asthana @SkyAnushka 27s PM has 23 spads, and Nick Clettrgg has 19. The top salaries are £140k. One justification is @IPPR report saying other countries have many more.
That was a really stupid pledge Dave made to cut SpAds, usually he keeps the stupid pledges (Heathrow, keeping all District Generals open) and dumps the sensible ones (NHS reorganisation, open primaries) but this time hes managed to dump a very stupid one, congratulations are in order.
GIN1138 Although Churchill in 1945 and Balfour in 1906 lost more seats than Major. His 1992 win was also the only time a 4th term has been won for a governing party since, I believe, Lord Liverpool!
Of course, in fairness to IDS, he was never given a chance to win a majority at the 2005 election. No doubt he would not have done, but he would probably have done about as well as Howard give or take a few seats!
You would think Obama would be under real pressure after this latest self-inflicted diplomatic car-crash on top of the Obamacare roll-out problems. Yet thanks to the escalating GOP/tea party war of the lunatics he'll be breathing a sigh of relief.
@tim - Strange you should say that but the next edition of the Hersham Bugle will be hitting the streets in the very near future - I'll post the link. Sadly space considerations meant we had to hold over your enchanting column on needlework, crochet patterns, and silk cushions to the next edition.
88% Con largest party 12% Lab largest party. (ie TOTAL = 100%!!!!!)
So the 12% is IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not Lab has a majority.
....... which is why the 15% Lab majority makes no sense.
I had a look at the paper. The probabilities for majority and hung parliament also sum to 100%, but the way he calculates them means it is possible for the probability of a hung parliament to be negative.
88% Con largest party 12% Lab largest party. (ie TOTAL = 100%!!!!!)
So the 12% is IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not Lab has a majority.
....... which is why the 15% Lab majority makes no sense.
No,
The chances of Labour not wining a majority are 85% (57 + 28). Or if you like they will have a 15% chance of winning. Then....
Given a 28% chance of NOM the chances that the Tories will be the largest of the two parties is greatest. So this pushes the two-horse race to 88-12. So I Labour are not going to form a majority their vote share will not be sufficient to overcome the advantage that the Conservatives have and so the Tories will be the largest party.
Accepting that the modeling is based on percentages polled (and not how many millions voted, in what constituencies and based upon what regional patterns occurred) the margin between Labour second-party and Labour majority must be very small. Only Stephen can verify....
Edited to add: It almost 100% certain that either Labour or the Tories will be the largest party in seventeen months time. It would be some event for this hypothesis not to be held true.
88% Con largest party 12% Lab largest party. (ie TOTAL = 100%!!!!!)
So the 12% is IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not Lab has a majority.
....... which is why the 15% Lab majority makes no sense.
I had a look at the paper. The probabilities for majority and hung parliament also sum to 100%, but the way he calculates them means it is possible for the probability of a hung parliament to be negative.
Why are you taking him seriously ? The only possibility of a party to have a greater chance to win outright than just be the largest party is for them to be odds-on favourite to win an absolute majority. It is only in the event they cannot win an absolute, the largest party option becomes possible.
But according to this "expert", it is the Tories who are odds-on favourite !
Andy Warhol said every person will have 15 minutes of fame !
The chances of Labour not wining a majority are 85% (57 + 28). Or if you like they will have a 15% chance of winning. Then....
Given a 28% chance of NOM the chances that the Tories will be the largest of the two parties is greatest. So this pushes the two-horse race to 88-12. So I Labour are not going to form a majority their vote share will not be sufficient to overcome the advantage that the Conservatives have and so the Tories will be the largest party.
Accepting that the modeling is based on percentages polled (and not how many millions voted, in what constituencies and based upon what regional patterns occurred) the margin between Labour second-party and Labour majority must be very small. Only Stephen can verify....
Edited to add: It almost 100% certain that either Labour or the Tories will be the largest party in seventeen months time. It would be some event for this hypothesis not to be held true.
OK, I think you are saying:
28% Hung Parliament OF WHICH largest party splits 88/12.
........ which means overall breakdown is:
57% Con maj 15% Lab maj 24.6% Hung - Con largest (ie 88% * 28%) 3.6% Hung - Lab largest (ie 12% * 28%)
88% Con largest party 12% Lab largest party. (ie TOTAL = 100%!!!!!)
So the 12% is IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not Lab has a majority.
....... which is why the 15% Lab majority makes no sense.
I had a look at the paper. The probabilities for majority and hung parliament also sum to 100%, but the way he calculates them means it is possible for the probability of a hung parliament to be negative.
Why are you taking him seriously ? The only possibility of a party to have a greater chance to win outright than just be the largest party is for them to be odds-on favourite to win an absolute majority. It is only in the event they cannot win an absolute, the largest party option becomes possible.
But according to this "expert", it is the Tories who are odds-on favourite !
Andy Warhol said every person will have 15 minutes of fame !
You do not understand the probabilities in this case. Logically if Labour have a majority they must also be the largest party, so the probability of having a majority cannot be greater. It is in this case because Fisher makes two separate calculations which are inconsistent because his statistical assumptions are faulty.
Grangemouth survival package agreed and positive GDP figure, a very good news day.
Its the economy stupid, and that alone blows any chance of Milibat it right when he called Ed Miliband a conman this week, the idea that this economic recovery is some how the 'wrong type of growth' when its providing increased employment and job security after the turmoil of the last five years really is one big con.
all good points and then to have a John Rentoul piece linked by a left-er which actually makes the point that the Cons are and should be happy that EdM as a "con man" is all that will be remembered from Dave's Disastrous PMQs is the icing on the cake.
Whose polling are you expecting to improve in the wake of thi over the next few weeks then, Dave or Ed? Do you bet?
Sorry missed this.
I try not to bet but often do err.
That said, I have no interest in the opinion polls over the next 18 months, let alone the next few weeks. The key test is in the ballot box at GE2015.
But in answer to your question, EdM has been on the up. This is partly because people who have suffered for the past five years want someone, anyone, to sort things out and Ed has offered some simplistic solutions as he should, being in opposition when any pledge is meaningless and said for effect. Hence your point, well made, that the public (some of it) is to the left of the Labour Party, wants nationalisation of rail, the utilities, whatever.
This, however, is I'm afraid a legacy of the consequenceless Blair/Brown years. The reality is that actions have consequences and they are often hard to bear as they are in this instance.
So if EdM says it will all be ok with no requirement to spell out exactly how, then he will attract a following.
I have said several times, and contiue to believe, however, that at the ballot box, despite the danger of a wilful collective short term amnesia, people will be reluctant to vote back in Labour so that they can ruin it all again.
Am I betting on it? Well of course I am - with my entire net worth as a voting member of the public.
But I must away to bed now as I have just watched a dreadful and too long Pierce Brosnan film and must be up early in the morning.
You don't want to try to understand it Surbi as it does not fit your mind-think. Just imagine a very close election where the average majority in each seat is 1000. Given 650 seats that implies the election has been 'decided' by these 650,000 marginal voters. Now that is about three per-cent of the participant electorate.
So that change could be 33/38 to 34/37.* Due to the way the model measures I doubt it could predict each of the 650 constituency outcomes but it does highlight how little it takes to move Labour from the Opposition to Majority Governing party.
What you may disagree with is the implied limit to Labour's vote: 38% as the start of the tail may or may not be correct for 2015. If Labour is seen as "left-wing" and liberals such as Dr Fox don't like the prospect of REd then they may hold their noses and vote for Dave. The same may be true for the likes of me on the right of Dave. That stretches-out the Tory tail and improves the party's chances.
It is a model. And I am trying to envisage how it works (and may be wrong)....
* Assumes only movement between the two majors matter. Other party movements will cancel-out each other overall.
Appears to claim the energy companies are profiteering
You are wasting your time Tim, and so is David Cameron. And John Major. All is rosy in the world of energy, we've never had it so good, overcharging is a myth. The Herd has decreed it to be so, so it is so.
28% Hung Parliament OF WHICH largest party splits 88/12.
........ which means overall breakdown is:
57% Con maj 15% Lab maj 24.6% Hung - Con largest (ie 88% * 28%) 3.6% Hung - Lab largest (ie 12% * 28%)
Summinck like that Mike. I don't think you can calculate it linearly though. The closer Labour get to the Tories the greater the impact they have, but similarly the further they are from the Conservative percentage the more they lose.
So the scope of Labour being behind by - say - 299-300 and them gaining 325 seats (+speaker) accounts for a narrow segment of the 28% NOM possibility. I think....
I just caught the full Jim Ratcliffe interview with the BBC, he has certainly come out fighting in the UK media today now the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed. It won't make comfortable viewing for the Unite representatives involved, or some Labour MP's for that matter. BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
Thank you , fitalass.
Ratcliffe is the voice of sanity. Two and two still makes four. Cameron should offer him a peerage and get him in the Cabinet.
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Major is one of the most underrated politicians in modern times. He quite simply defied political gravity in 1992, and came out fighting - who can forget the sight of this rather mild mannered figure standing on a soapbox in marginal constituencies, taking the fight to Labour? That he got trounced in 1997 was hardly his fault -- after winning a shock majority in 92 the Tories spent the next few years destroying themselves over Europe, while Major was torn to pieces by the nutters on the frothing Tory Right. He's a keen cricket fan too, so that's a big tick in his column.
Comments
Not making any political point,she enjoyed it,but got weary of protocols etc.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10405898/Environment-Secretary-Owen-Paterson-angers-Morris-dancers.html
Osborne is delivering.In spades.
Poliiticians must be judged on results in a meritocracy.
All the rest is just idle chit-chat.
It looks like a case of poor financial controls rather than fraud, given that the Police decided not to take action after investigating the incident.
This will not be an isolated problem in Free Schools. They will have inherited a public sector culture of accounting and financial control. The submission to a rigorous independent audit will be a major shock.
Goodness knows what auditors would turn up if they were let loose on LEA maintained schools.
Free schools should take a leaf out of the public schools' books and employ an ex-Army Major as Bursar. They may be famously dim but they are totally incorruptible.
Can't think why, as - as we're constantly told by 'experts' (ie anyone who's been to school) - it's a well paid, piss easy job, with short days and big holidays. Not to mention the gold-plated pension. I don't get it. What's not to like?
Do the books, referee the boxing tournament, run the CCF and keep the SCR cellar well stocked.
Has Will Straw been selected anywhere yet?
Que ?
Although Straw can hardly step down since he's already detritus in the New Labour gutter.
imo teacher, nursing and plod management should all be the same - basically a light duties job you do after 20 years when your knees or back has gone.
Pity you didn't have the opportunity to go to a free school, you might have learned something.
11 grand on dodgy invoices according to C4 news.
The DfE website lists the problems:
our investigation found:
• £182,933 of lead-in grant was paid during the start-up period before opening in September 2011
• £59,560 was not supported by any evidence of payments being made and £10,800 of this was supported by fabricated invoices for rent
• there was a total of £26,775 which had been over-claimed against payments which had been made legitimately
• therefore a total of £86,335 had not been used for its intended purpose. Some further evidence from the academy of legitimate payments (eg for the accounting system) resulted in the repayment being reduced to £76,933
• we informed the police in April 2013. The police decided to take no further action
• the department issued a warning notice to the school in May 2013. It required them to take action to address failings in their financial management.
For the Police to investigate that lot and find no cause to lay charges means essentially that there was monumental incompetence: effectively no standard bookkeeping and financial controls.
Independence from local authority control has its burdens as well as freedoms. Not something that will be at the forefront of the founders' minds perhaps.
That's the Army way.
Joyce will know how to give a sarcastic salute to Dave and Gove.
Toby might be a little more difficult.
You would just need to steal into his office the night before the visit and confiscate the to the Armoury
Where Gove has gone wrong imo is that he should have effected change via sorting out the regulatory body, not given more power to managers who are the root of most of the problems.
And I was on board re some policies like more academic rigour etc. Many teachers felt the same. Gove could have taken many of us with him, but instead he wanted to re-enact Maggie and the miners.
The problems with the financial accounting at KSA are exactly what you would expect in any start-up enterprise where the supervisory body had not yet learnt from experience.
You have to take risks to create something new and effective. And self-managed schools (outside of the private sector) are new. Many of them will not survive. But enough will thrive to prove the concept and influence the rest of the sector.
The art of efficient management is to be seemingly invisible, but it takes much practice and learning to get there.
Yep, okay Avery. I wasn't talking only of free schools but never mind.
'You were on board with Gove? - news to me ducky.'
It's not the first time I've said it on PB.
BBC - Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe on Grangemouth's future
What's wrong, why don't you play the victim card and cry, ducky.
I just assumed he was from Stoke. But the 'posh' end.
The most noise I can recall of outrage on moral terms about a Coalition policy is the bedroom tax, and that is pretty popular isn't it? Certainly the welfare cap at least is, so if the coalition is immoral in its policies, most people are idiots as either they are immoral and like those policies, or they don't think they are immoral.
Therefore, Merkel's phone was bugged !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdojzc0J8ts
So Labour could win a majority but that it is less likely that they will be the largest party. Conversely The Tories are more normally distributed: For each rise in their vote-percentage it becomes more likely that they will form a majority than that they would just be the largest party.
Ofcourse the two-party analysis ignores third-parties: Just as the Dhimmies denied the Tories in 2010 so they may recover enough to eat away a Labour (primarily) and the Tories. If you accept - via, say, swingback - Labour may struggle to get 35-36% then it will be more likely that the Tories will form a majority or be the largest party if the Labour vote is significantly undercut by "Others".
It sounds confusing and I await Stephens feedback but because the Tory range is wider they have the greater opportunities. If Labour can narrow the gap between the big-two then they have a better chance of gaining a majority as the gains rapidly accrue.
Ratcliffe is the voice of sanity. Two and two still makes four. Cameron should offer him a peerage and get him in the Cabinet.
So Labour could win a majority but that it is less likely that they will be the largest party.
What Columbian are you smoking ?
Let's say, all things being equal, that Labour wins an absolute majority at 36% and becomes the largest party at 33% [ it would, of course, depend on the vote distribution of other parties ].
We start at 29% [ GE2010]. So you are saying Labour has a greater probability of getting more than 36% than getting 33% - 35% ?
Don't be silly!
We bug Cameron, then tell the Americans!
Consider 2015: [Hypothetically] Labour are likely to poll 33% and Tories 37% as Labour are seen as more statist and the Tory-led coalition as competant and middle-of-the-road. So Tory-largest party is highly possible. If the poll shifts 34%/36% it is probably more conceivable that Labour can form a majority (albeit small) government rather then just be the largest party per se. [Different outcomes that should not be conflated: Largest party implies minority or Coalition politics.]
So that explains the anomoly between the largest-party/majority outcome for Labour. Due to the [literally] denseness of their core electorate small changes in poll outcomes can lead to perverse majorities. The more you think about it the obvious it becomes....
It must also brings into question Ed Miliband's lack of Leadership and inherent weakness whenever the Labour Party's biggest donor Unite becomes embroiled in an industrial dispute. That Ed Miliband couldn't even bring himself to raise the vital issue of Grangemouth's closure at PMQ's because of a conflict of interest was a dereliction of duty by a LotO. A hurried Urgent Question tagged onto the end of PMQ's to save his blushes, and then a tweet demanding the Government do something to prevent about the closure when he could have directly raised the issue with the PM two hours earlier looked extremely cowardly in the circumstances.
" Ineos plans to spend around £200m on a new shipping terminal at Grangemouth to handle imports of cheap US ethane – a replacement for declining North Sea feedstocks. Much of the remaining £100m of spending will modify the chemicals cracker to the US gases, which are different to those in the North Sea.
The investment is expected to be backed by a £125m loan guarantee under the Treasury’s £40bn infrastructure guarantee plan plus £9m from the Scottish government.
The terminal is due to be built in two and a half years.
Mr Ratcliffe was vilified by the unions as a Swiss-based billionaire negotiating Grangemouth’s future from his yacht – an image he described as “a load of bollocks”.
“I have not be sat in a yacht in the Med. I have been sat in London and Edinburgh.” he said. “Yes, I’ve made some money. But I started off in a very poor part of Manchester. I don’t feel hair-shirted about the fact that I have a nice boat. It’s not relevant.”"
In reality the US are still uncovering extent of the document steal but the info Snowden has isn't just about the big electronic ears. Truth be told it isnt hard to work out what cables and over the air channels the CAZAB effort has taps on. The electronic channels being compromised does hurt the US disproportionately as they do have an over heavy dependence on technical collection.
A real killer though is that certain agencies that the US have very good liaison with have really good human intelligence operations. They've been told to press the eject button on some of them because their assets could be identified from Snowdens haul.
Snowden is no Bradley Manning, its worse, much worse.
Seriously, Tim and JohnO should be given their own "spin-off" show. Very funny double act.
Its notable that he kept his power dry while his critics tried to vilify him in the media over the last few weeks, now that the Grangemouth survival package has been agreed he has come out fighting.
It clearly says:
88% Con largest party
12% Lab largest party.
(ie TOTAL = 100%!!!!!)
So the 12% is IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not Lab has a majority.
....... which is why the 15% Lab majority makes no sense.
In other news, well done on your new job.
Many thanks for bringing it to our attention.
LOL!
This being Clegg there is of course the usual huge dollop of hypocrisy ladled on top.
Sunil Congratulations on the new job!
Although you have to remember IDS wasn't even trusted by his party to lead them to defeat in 2005!
The chances of Labour not wining a majority are 85% (57 + 28). Or if you like they will have a 15% chance of winning. Then....
Given a 28% chance of NOM the chances that the Tories will be the largest of the two parties is greatest. So this pushes the two-horse race to 88-12. So I Labour are not going to form a majority their vote share will not be sufficient to overcome the advantage that the Conservatives have and so the Tories will be the largest party.
Accepting that the modeling is based on percentages polled (and not how many millions voted, in what constituencies and based upon what regional patterns occurred) the margin between Labour second-party and Labour majority must be very small. Only Stephen can verify....
Edited to add: It almost 100% certain that either Labour or the Tories will be the largest party in seventeen months time. It would be some event for this hypothesis not to be held true.
But according to this "expert", it is the Tories who are odds-on favourite !
Andy Warhol said every person will have 15 minutes of fame !
http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2013/10/croydon-south-candidates-are-put-through-their-doorstep-paces-with-a-canvassing-test.html
Sunil Good luck!
28% Hung Parliament OF WHICH largest party splits 88/12.
........ which means overall breakdown is:
57% Con maj
15% Lab maj
24.6% Hung - Con largest (ie 88% * 28%)
3.6% Hung - Lab largest (ie 12% * 28%)
"So you're telling me there's a chance? YEAH!!!!" - Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber.
I try not to bet but often do err.
That said, I have no interest in the opinion polls over the next 18 months, let alone the next few weeks. The key test is in the ballot box at GE2015.
But in answer to your question, EdM has been on the up. This is partly because people who have suffered for the past five years want someone, anyone, to sort things out and Ed has offered some simplistic solutions as he should, being in opposition when any pledge is meaningless and said for effect. Hence your point, well made, that the public (some of it) is to the left of the Labour Party, wants nationalisation of rail, the utilities, whatever.
This, however, is I'm afraid a legacy of the consequenceless Blair/Brown years. The reality is that actions have consequences and they are often hard to bear as they are in this instance.
So if EdM says it will all be ok with no requirement to spell out exactly how, then he will attract a following.
I have said several times, and contiue to believe, however, that at the ballot box, despite the danger of a wilful collective short term amnesia, people will be reluctant to vote back in Labour so that they can ruin it all again.
Am I betting on it? Well of course I am - with my entire net worth as a voting member of the public.
But I must away to bed now as I have just watched a dreadful and too long Pierce Brosnan film and must be up early in the morning.
I will catch up with any response tomorrow.
So that change could be 33/38 to 34/37.* Due to the way the model measures I doubt it could predict each of the 650 constituency outcomes but it does highlight how little it takes to move Labour from the Opposition to Majority Governing party.
What you may disagree with is the implied limit to Labour's vote: 38% as the start of the tail may or may not be correct for 2015. If Labour is seen as "left-wing" and liberals such as Dr Fox don't like the prospect of REd then they may hold their noses and vote for Dave. The same may be true for the likes of me on the right of Dave. That stretches-out the Tory tail and improves the party's chances.
It is a model. And I am trying to envisage how it works (and may be wrong)....
* Assumes only movement between the two majors matter. Other party movements will cancel-out each other overall.
So the scope of Labour being behind by - say - 299-300 and them gaining 325 seats (+speaker) accounts for a narrow segment of the 28% NOM possibility. I think....